Sunday, September 26, 2004

terra. by. nucleo.

What's a lawn chair? Dictionary.com defines it as a "chair left outside for use on a lawn or in a garden." The designers at Nucleo have a different take on it, though. Their definition is a chair made out of your lawn. Called the Terra, of course.

grow. your. own.The Terra starts out as a cardboard form in the shape of a chair. Fill the form with dirt, then fill the dirt with grass seeds, then add water, then wait. Pretty soon you'll have a lawn chair.

cost. plus. materials.The Terra is pretty cheap, too. The form costs just $115, although you have to provide your own dirt and seed. As a bonus, you don't have to worry about bringing the chair inside for the winter. On the other hand, you've got to figure out how to mow it.

11 Comments:

It's a cool idea, yes. Very reminiscent of the sod couch. But $115? For cardboard? Cardboard that is going to buried and not seen? I have a box cutter. Liquor stores are happy to let you take their old boxes. I'll make you one of these for nothin'.

And if you work at a mail-order fulfillment house, like I do, you're free to take home enough cardboard that in six month's you'd have enough to terraform your entire front yard...

Cool idea; I wish I had thought of it myself. Trimming it would be fairly simple; if you built a squarish seat (like the Sod Couch) you could do it with electric bush trimmers in no time. Curves present a little more problem.

The only disadvantage I can see (besides a) having to mow around it in the first place, something I like to avoid doing, and b) having to spend time trimming it often, which could be time-intensive) is that it could be somewhat dirty to sit on if you aren't careful about what colors you're wearing. If you like to scootch around, like I do, you're liable to have rather visible green spots on your rump (unless for some reason you happen to be wearing camo britches).

My guess is that the reason it's so expensive is because the cardboard is custom-cut; perhaps they had to design a special cutting system to do it (like a rotary cutter or large jigsaw).

Thanks for the link to the sod couch, I finally bought a house and remembered the article from a while back...this article was the first to pop up so the link saved me.

And with the sofa, you don't have to worry about tripping over it...you just plop yourself down in it and avoid the navigation problem of having to find your keys, not to mention the other problems, like an angry wife waiting up for you...